The weeks after the holidays are usually the slowest of the year for new music, but this January has gotten off to a fast start.
That’s been true both for marquee acts like The Weeknd and Elvis Costello who have already released full-length albums this month, as well as for a wide range of artists who have put out new songs teasing upcoming projects and tours.
Though the live music industry is again fraught with COVID-19 uncertainty due to the omicron variant, with many tours being postponed, others are carrying on.
It’s time, then, for digging into new music while looking ahead in hopes that the current COVID surge will soon peak and subside, and fans can get back to relatively anxiety-free communal listening. Here are a whole lot of new sounds to get through these chilly weeks of winter.
Elvis Costello & the Imposters, “The Boy Named If.” Any time an artist with such a significant oeuvre — this is the British songwriter’s 32nd album — puts out new music this good, the temptation is to call it his best album since … when? 1978’s “This Year’s Model”? 1986’s “Blood & Chocolate”?
Instead, let’s just say that Costello has been on a creative roll of late, starting in 2018 with “Look Now” and continuing in 2020 with Hey Clockface, and that “The Boy Named If” is clearly the best of the bunch.
“The Boy Named If” is a 13-track collection of thematically linked songs that hit hard from the opening thwack of Pete Thomas’ drums on “Farewell, OK.” The album’s full title is “A Boy Named If (And Other Children’s Tales),” and Costello has explained in the album notes that “If” is the nickname a child gives to an imaginary friend, “your secret self … the one you blame for the shattered crockery and the hearts you break, even your own.”
Never fear, though. You don’t need to follow the story to enjoy the songs, which are uniformly strong, as is Costello’s singing, on the self-doubting “What If I Can’t Give You Anything but Love” and the particularly fetching “Paint the Red Rose Blue.”
The Weeknd, “Dawn FM.” Last winter, when The Weeknd announced his After Hours tour, the jaunt named after the Canadian singer’s 2020 album was supposed to be a post-COVID arena tour pop celebration.
In the fall, the Canadian singer, born Abel Tesfaye, canceled those dates and announced they would be rescheduled as (still-unannounced) stadium shows. The Weeknd’s rise to world-conquering “Starboy” (to cite his 2016 album title) was so complete, it seemed, that only stadiums would do. But that the shows remained unscheduled seemed a depressing reminder that the pandemic wasn’t going away.
The surprise release of “Dawn FM” this month put all that into perspective. It turned out that it didn’t make sense for The Weeknd to go on tour for a project from 2020 when he was sitting on a new album that’s the most impressive of his career.
“Dawn FM” is compelling in many intriguing ways, starting with the album cover, a digitally aged photo of the 31-year-old singer with a salt-and-pepper beard.
The album contains a spoken-word interlude from Quincy Jones, recalling his mother, who was diagnosed with schizophrenia, being taken away to a mental hospital when Jones was 8. The super producer’s presence underscores a link between Tesfaye and Michael Jackson.
And along with ubiquitous collaborators like Calvin Harris and Max Martin, the album’s “Here We Go … Again,” which features Tyler, the Creator, is co-written with Bruce Johnston, the 79-year-old member of the Beach Boys.
“Dawn FM,” which has topped the Billboard album chart since its release, is also a concept album. It’s structured as a long listen to a mythical R&B radio station (hosted by Jim Carrey, who provides intermittent voice-overs), with the singer-driver stuck in traffic on the way to his presumed death.
But like “The Boy Named If,” “Dawn FM” carries its narrative loosely. The album works as a collection of melodic, freestanding songs that reach back to 1970s disco and 1980s R&B, shot through with the just the right measure of 2020s paranoia.
Along with Costello and The Weeknd, the new year has also seen the release of a handful of other worthy full-length efforts.
Chan Marshall, the sultry voiced singer who records as Cat Power, released “Covers,” with interpretations of Frank Ocean, Iggy Pop, the Pogues and Jackson Browne.
